


The Big Boy Scout's Guide to Venous Occlusion

by lori (zakhad)



Series: Captain and Counselor [41]
Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-27
Updated: 2009-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-05 08:55:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zakhad/pseuds/lori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A vignette, in which Troi demonstrates that she knows more about the history of the human attitude toward the phallus than anyone really wants to know. Not explicit in the PWP sense.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Big Boy Scout's Guide to Venous Occlusion

The great willow tree stood on the river bank, leaves shifting in the evening breeze. Dusk had fallen; the sun had gone down already, and the last streaks of red were deepening to the black of night. Frogs and crickets were singing soft songs to each other.

At the very end of the promontory, in a grassy patch between the tree and the muddy water's edge, a couple sat on a blanket. She had her legs folded and leaned on one hand, facing him; he lay with his right knee bent, foot flat on the blanket, and stared at the darkening sky, arms folded on his chest. They had been like this for some time. Her hair, long and loose, shifted in the breeze like the willow leaves, trailing across her bare breasts.

"Kallixeinos of Rhodes," she said, apropos of nothing.

He snorted. When she didn't react, he turned his head slightly. Curiosity often got the better of him. She, of course, had been counting on it. "Who?"

"In 275 B.C. he attended a Dionysian festival in Alexandria. You remember who Dionysus is?"

"I'm not sure which mythology you're talking about. Does it matter?"

"Greek god, of wine. He had an affair with Aphrodite that resulted in a minor deity named Priapus, a fertility god with a perpetual erection. The Greeks honored Dionysus every year with seven festivals, each marked by a procession of _phalloi_ held by _phalophoroi_ while revelers drank wine and sang lewd songs."

"Seven festivals. Good for Dionysus. I'm sure he enjoyed it."

"Kallixeinos of Rhodes went to one in Alexandria. He claims to have seen a golden phallus 180 feet long, carried through the streets. It was preceded by a parade of fantastic proportions -- ten rows of ostriches ridden by boys dressed as satyrs, scores of Ethiopians carrying elephant tusks, dozens of peacocks, sixteen cheetahs, fourteen leopards, a white bear, a rhinoceros, and a giraffe. It was followed by a golden statue of Zeus and more than fifty thousand foot soldiers."

"Mm."

The crickets chirped another hundred choruses of their favorite song before she spoke again. "It's interesting that the anatomy of the penis wasn't understood until the late twentieth century. I believe it was Leonardo da Vinci who first thoroughly documented dissected cadavers, but he still drew the penis wrong. The Church, at that time, had a great deal of control over beliefs on all matters scientific -- it was believed that semen and urine traveled through different tubes, so urine wouldn't pollute the semen. How much he fought to do his research, yet he had to be that careful not to push past that boundary."

"Are you going through human history in small increments, or will you be skipping to Freud soon?"

She inclined her head, eyeing him, mouth twisting in a wry half-smile. "Such impatience. I thought you liked history."

"In other settings, yes."

"Are you saying you'd like to be psychoanalyzed? Freud's theories are outdated and his method of analysis takes years. I also doubt your difficulty is rooted in your childhood."

"Dee."

She sighed and looked up at the sky. The moon hovered over the tree line on the other side of the slow-moving river.

"It's not your fault."

"I hadn't thought it was." She shifted ponderously, refolding her legs with her toes pointing inland, and leaned on the other arm. He smoothed her hair back from her face, letting his arm fall on the blanket between them. With a blade of grass she plucked near his head, she traced the veins in his arm. "I doubt it's your fault, either. There are a lot of possible causes for it. I suppose you'll try to tell me it's never happened before?"

"It hasn't."

She nodded, letting it go unchallenged, though he'd dared her with the lie. The veins she could see in the moonlight done, she moved on to tracing the tendons in his wrist. And rationalizations, for his amusement. Or not. "A combination of things probably contributes to that -- you weren't celibate, but nearly so since becoming a captain, thus fewer chances for it to occur. And once in a long-term relationship, you didn't often experience that much anxiety, and when you did, it generally coincided with other factors that prevented sexual contact. One of the major factors in this sort of thing is anxiety -- over the act itself, over some other part of the relationship, over unrelated stressors."

"I'm not anxious," he murmured, opening his hand to let her tickle his palm.

"You don't want to be." She tossed aside the grass and laid her palm on his, curling her fingers around his wrist.

"I have nothing to be anxious about."

"You did have something. Such things aren't resolved overnight. You know this."

"That isn't what I want to talk about. I wanted this to be. . . ."

"I know, Jean. So did I."

He let her lean against his bent leg, bringing the other up to support it. A bullfrog's call crossed the water, ceasing after five repetitions. He caressed her distended abdomen, though it was more out of habit than affection. His thoughts were preoccupied with unspent yearnings. She didn't have to be Betazoid to know this.

"I'll bet you don't even know how it works," she said, putting a hint of challenge in her tone of voice. It would either work or not, and subtlety was important when it came to him. He always saw through obvious manipulations quickly.

"I think I know how it works by now, Dee." Obviously torn between laughing at her and scolding her, he managed not to sound too offended.

"All right. Tell me how it works."

It shook him out of his obsessed musing, and made him sit up. She tried to stand, and once he realized her intention, he helped her. Once they were on their feet, he crossed his arms. In the moonlight, his face remained in shadow until he glanced downriver. He smirked at the situation, at her request, at himself -- impossible to tell which.

"I'll even give you a start. Arousal. The smooth muscle tissue in the penis relaxes, allowing the corpora cavernosa to expand and fill with blood. This occurs so quickly that the veins that carry blood out of the corpora are flattened against the tunica albuginea. You didn't know this, did you?"

"I'm not a doctor," he grumbled.

"You don't have to be to understand the way it works. The tunica is a tough membrane that surrounds the corpora. The corpora, of which there are two, are like sponges. When full, they make the penis erect; when coition is over, or if there is an interruption -- a baby crying, for example, or if we wish to talk in evolutionary terms, a lion roaring -- and the body secretes epinephrine resulting in the contraction of those smooth muscles, the veins open and deflate the corpora. The fight-or-flight mechanism works best uninhibited by an erection, after all.  The mechanism is that simple -- muscles relax, arteries open, blood flows in, corpora inflate, veins flattened against the tunica. The result is an erection, or technically, venous occlusion. Of course, there are physical difficulties that can result in being unable to maintain an erection, but it's easily caused by the mental state of the man. Emotions influence our body's behavior -- anxiety, in whatever form, can be deflating. Even if it's residual, repressed anxiety."

"Thank you, Dr. Freud." He picked up her clothes, sparing her the painstaking process of bending down while eight months pregnant.

"I wouldn't diagnose such a thing if I didn't know from experience that pregnancy poses no deterrent."

He picked up his shirt and pulled it over his head while she put her arms through the sleeves of the huge dress she hated. "Any other diagnoses to make, before I call for the arch?"

"Only that the partner's reaction should be carefully considered. In my case, I thought it best to avoid anything that could be construed as sympathy, amusement, or worse, pity. While I may in fact be sympathetic -- women have their moods, after all, and pregnant ones are renowned for it -- I wasn't amused, or pitying. It's common in men of all ages to go through it once in a while. I was a counselor long enough to see patients complaining about it. Where do you think I learned the lecture?"

He fastened his pants and stepped off the blanket. Downriver, a bird called mournfully. "It's a beautiful evening."

"It is." She helped him fold the blanket, once he'd picked up the edge for her. "Perfect for a walk in the moonlight."

"There's a spot not far from here where you can hear the whippoorwills. Want to go listen to them?"

She took his hand, letting him lead her through the willow leaves to the path. "I am hormonally incapable of resisting your incredible powers of persuasion."

"It's amazing how clinical you can be when you're trying not to pity me."

"I thought it might be more sympathetic to say it that way, rather than simply grabbing you. Especially since you're still imagining that it's somehow a reflection on you, that you're projecting your self-pity on me."

Cattails pattered against her as she followed him barefooted along the narrow, damp path. He still held her hand, reaching back while preceding her through the marshy area between the willow and the next stand of trees. Once in the shifting shadows of the forest, he slowed and walked beside her.

"It's difficult to not take it personally."

"Because it's personal," she said, lacing her fingers through his. "But it's nothing to be upset about. Really."

"Easy for you to say."

"No, I was really looking forward to copulation, not to mention oral and digital stimulation. Possibly even tactile expressions of affection."

He leaned, and she turned her head. Though it wasn't as fervent as before, the kiss was thorough and insistent. They swayed together in the haphazard moonlight filtered through the leaves of aspens, the crickets creaking in harmony. She leaned against him even after they parted, nose pressed to his cheek, eyes closed.

"I even love you when you're clinical," he mumbled.

"Have you missed the clinical side of me?"

"I didn't say that. Though she comes in handy at times."

"She can be useful in the absence of venous occlusion. She's kept me from shrieking in frustration, at least, and you appear to be in a better mood."

"She can go away now, if you don't mind."

"All right. Especially if sending her away will bring back the bulge in your pants."

"I thought we were looking for whippoorwills," he said, tugging her hand and shrugging the folded blanket higher on his shoulder.

"I thought that was a code word."

He looked askance at her and led the way through the trees. "Not everything is a metaphor. Sometimes a bird is just a bird."

"Unless you're hopelessly horny and waiting for a second chance."

He laughed. When she didn't respond, he stopped and studied her face in the varying moonlight. "I don't know. We'll see."

"Whippoorwills."

"Through there." He pointed, then led her into another stand of cattails. As they meandered on what appeared to be a random course, the low, mournful call of a bird rose from the field of reeds. "That sounds like one."

"Where is this place you're taking me?"

"Stand there." He trampled off through the cattails, returning a few seconds later. "Computer, clear the area I just marked off, and replace it with dry ground and green grass."

She tilted her head, brow wrinkling. "We were just on a dry grassy area."

"Out in the open, yes."

"But this is a holodeck. There's no one else in here."

"You just finished explaining to me that anxieties don't have to make sense to exist."

She shrugged, grabbed an end of the blanket, and helped him shake it out. "Whatever. Help me with this dress?"

"Absolutely." He dropped his edge of the blanket and reached for her. "Where did you come up with all that historical information?"

She smiled mysteriously. He stopped pulling at her sleeves.

"You predicted this occasion?"

"Like I said. It happens to everyone once in a while." She caught his hands before he could pull away completely. "Just because I knew a little cultural history doesn't mean I wanted to use it that way, Jean."

He exhaled, considering, and finally nodded. "Very thoughtful of you, I suppose. You'll have to show me your sources. Sounds like interesting reading."

"Not now, dear, I have a heartache."

"I didn't do as much research. What will help?"

"Lots of skin contact. Kissing."

"That doesn't sound like a heart problem to me," he murmured as her lips brushed his cheek.

"I could have been clinical, I suppose, but that's not conducive to actually solving the problem."

"Yet clinical was your solution to _my_ problem."

She whispered in his ear. "I don't have the same problem."

"What problem?" he breathed, covering her mouth with his.


End file.
